1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus that has a function of selecting transmitted or received image data and saving the selected transmitted or received image data into an external device through a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical facsimile apparatus has a facsimile communication function, which transmits or receives image data via an Internet (hereafter called “Internet facsimile”). A facsimile apparatus is also proposed for saving image data in an external device, the data of which is transmitted or received via a facsimile communication and an Internet. The apparatus is connected to a terminal device for archiving (archive terminal device) capable of receiving an e-mail through a network, and has a function of saving transmitted and received image data in the archive terminal device by attaching the image data in the e-mail and transmitting it to the archive terminal device. As the apparatus can save transmitted or received image data in an external device, the image data does not influence memory capacity of own device (facsimile apparatus itself), and can be saved safely. The conventional facsimile apparatus has the following disadvantages.
A first disadvantage of the conventional facsimile apparatus is that the archive terminal device cannot be easily operated or managed. For example, the contents of the saved image data or a file format cannot be checked until opening the saved e-mail, as the entire transmitted or received image data is saved in the archive terminal device. Moreover, all of the transmitted or received image data is saved, so that memory resources of the archive terminal device is wasted, unnecessary image data is increased and it takes a lot of trouble to operate and manage the archive terminal device.
A second disadvantage of the conventional facsimile apparatus is that unauthorized third parties can access the archive terminal device, and display or print image data, even if the image data is transmitted using a secured transmission function.
A third disadvantage of the conventional facsimile apparatus is that transmission image data is respectively saved in an archive terminal device with the e-mail every time transmitting documents, as well as normal transmission image data, even in the case of broadcasting and batch transmission functions. The broadcasting transmission function is used for transmitting the same transmission image data to a plurality of destinations in one operation for saving data in the archive terminal device. The batch transmission function is used for transmitting multiple image data of documents that is accumulated for transmitting to one destination. As image data transmitted using the broadcasting function is saved in a plurality of e-mail files, the data wastes memory resources of the archive terminal device. Additionally, as it is difficult to identify at a glance that a document is transmitted using the broadcasting function, the archive terminal device cannot be easily operated or managed. Moreover, even in the case of batch transmission, the archive terminal device cannot be easily operated or managed, as the data including some documents transmitted to the same destination all at once is saved in a plurality of e-mails.